Repoll at 54 polling station in UP on May 10

The Election Commission has ordered repoll in eight of the polling stations, which went to the polls in the last phase on May 8. The commission had earlier announced repoll in 46 polling stations in Qaimganj in Farrukhabad from where Congress candidate Louise Khurshid wife of UPCC chief Salman Khurshid is in the fray.

Talking to newsmen here on Wednesday the chief electoral officer AK Bishnoi said that repoll at all 54 polling stations would be held on Thursday. Apart from Qaimganj, the repoll would be in one each polling station of Fazilnagar, Salempur, Sohawal, Laxmipur, Mubarakpur and three polling stations of Ayodhya. While repoll was necessitated in Laxmipur because of disappearance of one sheet in a voter list at one polling station, at other seven places problem connected with electronic voting machines led to repoll.

Bishnoi said every voter in Qaimganj casting vote would be video-graphed at the polling station and those using ration card, student I- card or job card would have to deposit these identification documents for verification. The district election officer would return them after verification, Bishnoi said. The CEO said the commission had taken this step, as “some of these documents may not what they appear to be”. He said it was just as a precautionary measure to stop use of bogus document. He said those caught using fake documents would face criminal action. He said divisional commissioner would camp at Qaimganj during the polling.

The CEO said the CRPF constable Raj Kumar involved in rape of a girl in Gorakhpur had been dismissed. Referring to counting on May 11 Bishnoi said three-tier security arrangements had been made with the deployment of 200 companies of central para-military forces in 70 districts. He said election results would be available at commission’s website.